The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 eBook

mentally, socially, and morally? So has the other.
Is one bound by the laws of God to improve the talents
he has received from the Creator’s hands?
So is the other. Is one embraced in the command
‘Search the Scriptures’? So is the
other."[1] He maintained that unless masters could
lawfully degrade their slaves to the condition of
beasts, they were just as much bound to teach them
to read the Bible as to teach any other class of their
population.

[Footnote 1: African Repository, vol.
xxxii., p. 16.]

But great as was the interest of the religious element,
the movement for the education of the Negroes of the
South did not again become a scheme merely for bringing
them into the church. Masters had more than one
reason for favoring the enlightenment of the slaves.
Georgia slaveholders of the more liberal class came
forward about the middle of the nineteenth century,
advocating the education of Negroes as a means to
increase their economic value, and to attach them to
their masters. This subject was taken up in the
Agricultural Convention at Macon in 1850, and was
discussed again in a similar assembly the following
year. After some opposition the Convention passed
a resolution calling on the legislature to enact a
law authorizing the education of slaves. The
petition was presented by Mr. Harlston, who introduced
the bill embodying this idea, piloted it through the
lower house, but failed by two or three votes to secure
the sanction of the senate.[1] In 1855 certain influential
citizens of North Carolina[2] memorialized their legislature
asking among other things that the slaves be taught
to read. This petition provoked some discussion,
but did not receive as much attention as that of Georgia.

[Footnote 1: Special Report of the U.S.
Com. of Ed., p. 339]

[Footnote 2: African Repository, vol.
xxxi., pp. 117-118.]

In view of this renewed interest in the education
of the Negroes of the South we are anxious to know
exactly what proportion of the colored population
had risen above the plane of illiteracy. Unfortunately
this cannot be accurately determined. In the first
place, it was difficult to find out whether or not
a slave could read or write when such a disclosure
would often cause him to be dreadfully punished or
sold to some cruel master of the lower South.
Moreover, statistics of this kind are scarce and travelers
who undertook to answer this question made conflicting
statements. Some persons of that day left records
which indicate that only a few slaves succeeded in
acquiring an imperfect knowledge of the common branches,
whereas others noted a larger number of intelligent
servants. Arfwedson remarked that the slaves
seldom learned to read; yet elsewhere he stated that
he sometimes found some who had that ability.[1] Abolitionists
like May, Jay, and Garrison would make it seem that
the conditions in the South were such that it was
almost impossible for a slave to develop intellectual